Full House- A Lilo Family Story

Hidden Issue

"Harry papa has you baby it's okay." Louis said as he comforted Harry through his third panic attack of the day. Harry has become more and more dependent the past few days. He was in nappies all the time instead of only at night and he had stopped communicating efficiently, it was rare  to get a coherent sentence out of him and when he did, he talked at the same level as Niall. They had given up on home schooling for the moment since Harry wasn't even comprehending that people were talking to him. Someone needs to watch him 24/7 because he'll have an untriggered panic attack and scream out of nowhere and start scratching at his face, pulling his hair, biting himself, slamming his head against a wall, or even trying to hurt someone else. Louis had first noticed Harry harming himself in small ways such as pulling his hair or digging his nails into his arm about a month ago but it was something he could easily be snapped out of it. These past few days however it has reached a new level and Louis and Liam didn't know what to do. Yesterday he pushed Niall off the stairs. Luckily Niall was already almost at the bottom but it worried Louis. When he asked Harry why he did it he just stared blankly at the wall behind him before turning to Louis and saying "I had to." Liam caught Harry staring off into space mouthing words but when he tried snapping him out of it Harry went into a full blown panic attack.

Two more days went by and Louis and Liam felt hopeless so they set up an emergency appointment with Caspar, Harry's therapist.

"So what seems to be the problem, this seems urgent."

"We don't know what's happening to him and we're so scared. Nothing emotionally traumatizing has happened to him recently to make him digress this quickly." Liam went on to explain everything that had been happening recently with Harry to Caspar. When he was done Caspar put down his clipboard and excused himself. He came back a minute later.

"I called Joe, you need to take Harry to see him right now, I think I know what's wrong but Joe can properly test him. He said he'll be waiting for you." They thanked Caspar and left, nervously driving to the doctors. When they got there Liam took a sleeping Harry out of the car and began to walk into the office with Louis trailing behind. Joe took them back immediately and took Harry from Liam. He hooked him up to several machines and wires before going back to his desk and monitoring things on his computer. 30 minutes later he unhooked everything from a still sleeping Harry and handed him back to Liam. Joe sat down in his chair and ran his hands down his face, looking stressed.

"What's going on with my baby? Joe what's happening?" Louis asked worriedly.

"I can't believe I've never caught this before...God I feel horrible. Have you ever noticed how even before this new behaviour that Harry acted a little extreme for someone with what was seemingly abuse effects?" Liam and Louis would be lying if they said they hadn't thought of that.

"..Are you saying he doesn't have any effects from abuse?"

"He does but he would have grown out of them eventually and would have been left with simple things such as a rational fear of the dark or confined spaces. However it turns out a lot of Harry's behaviour is the result of early on-set Schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a type of mental disorder that is characterized by degeneration of thinking, motor, and emotional processes, with onset before age 18,early onset, or before age 13, very early onset. The disease presents symptoms such as auditory and visual hallucinations that appear to tell the child to hurt themselves or others, strange thoughts or feelings, and abnormal behaviour, profoundly impacting the child's ability to function and sustain normal interpersonal relationships. It typically presents after the age of seven. About 50% of young children diagnosed with schizophrenia experience severe symptoms and Harry is one of them. The voices he hears are what have been causing the seemingly random panic attacks and screaming as well as him causing harm to himself and to Niall as you said. The voices are controlling. An early or very-early diagnosis of schizophrenia such as Harry's leads to a worse prognosis than other psychotic disorders. The primary area that children with schizophrenia must adapt to is their social surroundings. It has been found, however, that early-onset schizophrenia carried a more severe prognosis than later-onset schizophrenia. Regardless of treatment, children diagnosed with schizophrenia at an early age suffer diminished social skills, such as educational and vocational abilities. I've been confusing the symptoms with effects of abuse but looking at his files it seems the Schizophrenia first presented itself when Harry was about six which is the second youngest case ever heard of. It started off mild which is also why it wasn't detected but it is a progressive disorder and it's getting worse. It explains the suicide attempt he had awhile back, children with Schizophrenia are extremely likely to commit or attempt suicide."

Louis and Liam were both in tears as Louis gently rubbed Harry's back and he slept against Louis' chest.

"Are you saying there's nothing we can do to help our baby?" Louis said.

"Well now that he's been diagnosed we can start him in a more intense therapy type sessions with Caspar to improve his motor and social skills and we can also put him on medication to try and suppress the hallucinations. However, you will have to look after him for the rest of his life, he can't live alone or even be alone for a minute honestly. His mental skills have also digressed quite a bit. I'll have Caspar run a few tests on another day but I would say Harry's mental capacity is most likely going to be that of a four year old at best, maybe not even that. He will literally be your baby for the rest of his life. We can try and exercise his brain back to maybe a year 3 level eventually but that will take years if it's even possible. I have his prescriptions written up here so you can start him on them right away so it doesn't continue to progress. He'll also have to come in for a check up every two weeks."

Liam and Louis thanked Joe and left. They picked up Harry's prescription and drove home, both f them in tears. They expected Harry to be able to graduate high school and with proper therapy be able to possibly one day move out and have a family but now that would never happen, their baby was stuck being their baby. One day Niall would surpass Harry and that scared them to know that Harry was so helpless. They both silently vowed to devote their lives to their little boy who just couldn't seem to catch a break in this world.

Okay so nobody expected that. I've had this planned since the beginning honestly I just wasn't sure when to put it in because a lot of chapters required Harry to have more of an understanding. It's another reason I made his character so complex.

QOTC: What do you think of this new diagnosis and how it will affect them?